News Intelligence Analysis
Soldier Lifts Lid on Camp
Delta
By Paul Harris
The
Observer UK
Sunday 08 May 2005
For the first time, an army insider blows the whistle on human
rights abuses
at Guantánamo.
An American soldier has revealed shocking new details of abuse
and
sexual torture of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay in the first
high-profile
whistleblowing account to emerge from inside the top-secret base.
Erik Saar, an Arabic speaker who was a translator in interrogation
sessions, has produced a searing first-hand account of working
at
Guantánamo. It will prove a damaging blow to a White House
still struggling
to recover from the abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq.
In an exclusive interview, Saar told The Observer that prisoners
were
physically assaulted by 'snatch squads' and subjected to sexual
interrogation techniques and that the Geneva Conventions were
deliberately
ignored by the US military.
He also said that soldiers staged fake interrogations to impress
visiting administration and military officials. Saar believes
that the great
majority of prisoners at Guantánamo have no terrorist
links and little
worthwhile intelligence information has emerged from the base
despite its
prominent role in America's war on terror.
Saar paints a picture of a base where interrogations of often
innocent
prisoners have spiralled out of control, doing massive damage
to America's
image in the Muslim world.
Saar said events at Guantánamo were a disaster for
US foreign policy.
'We are trying to promote democracy worldwide. I don't see how
you can do
that and run a place like Guantánamo Bay. This is now
a rallying cry to the
Muslim world,' he said.
Saar arrived at Guantánamo Bay in December 2002, and
worked there until
June 2003. He first worked as a translator in the prisoners'
cages. He was
then transferred to the interrogation teams, acting as a translator.
Saar's book, Inside the Wire, provides the first fully detailed
look
inside Guantánamo Bay's role as a prison for detainees
the White House has
insisted are the 'worst of the worst' among Islamic militants.
His tale
describes his gradual disillusionment, from arriving as a soldier
keen to do
his duty to eventually leaving believing the regime to be a breach
of human
rights and a disaster for the war on terror.
Among the most shocking abuses Saar recalls is the use of
sex in
interrogation sessions. Some female interrogators stripped down
to their
underwear and rubbed themselves against their prisoners. Pornographic
magazines and videos were also used as rewards for confessing.
In one session a female interrogator took off some of her
clothes and
smeared fake blood on a prisoner after telling him she was menstruating.
'That's a big deal. It is a major insult to one of the world's
biggest
religions where we are trying to win hearts and minds,' Saar
said.
Saar also describes the 'snatch teams', known as the Initial
Reaction
Force (IRF), who remove unco-operative prisoners from their cells.
He
describes one such snatch where a prisoner's arm was broken.
In a training
session for an IRF team, one US soldier posing as a prisoner
was beaten so
badly that he suffered brain damage. It is believed the IRF team
had not
been told the 'detainee' was a soldier.
Staff at Guantánamo also faked interrogations for visiting
senior
officials. Prisoners who had already been interrogated were sat
down behind
one-way mirrors and asked old questions while the visiting officials
watched.
Saar also describes the effects prolonged confinement had
on many of the
prisoners. He details bloody suicide attempts and serious mental
illnesses.
One detainee slashed his wrists with razors and wrote in blood
on a wall: 'I
committed suicide because of the brutality of my oppressors.'
Saar details a meeting with an army lawyer where linguists,
interrogators and intelligence workers at the base were told
the Geneva
Conventions did not apply to their work as the detainees could
not be
considered normal prisoners of war. At the end of the meeting
the group was
told: 'We still intend to treat the detainees humanely, but our
purpose is
to get any actionable intelligence we can and quickly.'
But Saar said that many, if not most, of the detainees were
rarely
interrogated at all after their initial arrival. They just sat
listlessly in
their cells for months on end. He believes that many of them
were either
simple footsoldiers caught up in the war in Afghanistan or elsewhere,
or
innocent men sold out to the Americans by local enemies settling
a grudge or
looking to collect reward money.
Saar accepts that some genuine terrorists have been held at
Guantánamo.
'There are individuals there who I hope will never be set free,'
he said,
but he contends that they are in the minority. 'Overall, it is
counter-productive,' he said.
Saar was an enthusiastic supporter of George Bush in the 2000
elections
but he has changed his world view after being exposed to Guantánamo
Bay. 'I
believe in America and American troops,' he said, 'but it has
drastically
changed my world view and my politics.'
Saar left the army and has become a hate figure for some right-wing
groups which say he and his book are unpatriotic. But Saar believes
exposing
the abuses of Guantánamo will lessen the damage done to
America's reputation
in the long run. 'The camp is a mistake. It does not need to
be that way.
There should be a better way, more in line with American morals,'
he said.
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